1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, method and program. More particularly, the invention relates to an information processing apparatus having a speech user interface.
2. Description of the Related Art
A user interface (UI) utilizing speech recognition or speech synthesis can be applied to equipment such as car navigation systems. Speech recognition generally is accompanied by the problem of misrecognition. Although there are various causes of misrecognition, such as background noise, often the fact that the way a user makes an utterance is inappropriate can lead to misrecognition. For example, if the timing of start of an utterance is too early, the beginning of input speech may be lost. There are also occasions where an utterance is too loud or too soft. A method whereby a system advises the user of the appropriate method of utterance is conceivable as a method of reducing misrecognition due to an inappropriate utterance. In other words, according to this method, the cause of an inappropriate utterance is determined from the input speech of the user and the user is given advice at the proper timing so as to correct for the cause.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,336,091 discloses a technique for analyzing input speech and classifying the speech as to whether the start of an utterance is too early or whether the voice is too loud or too soft.
Although U.S. Pat. No. 6,336,091 discloses a method of determining the cause of an inappropriate utterance from the input speech of the user, it is silent with regard to an interactive method of advising the user based upon the determination.
A problem that arises with the giving of advice to a user is the timing of the advice. Assume that some inappropriate factor, e.g., a voice that is too loud, can be specified from the input speech of a user. A conceivable method of dealing with this is to immediately issue the advice “Your voice is too loud; speak a little more softly” or “Adjust microphone sensitivity”. However, speech recognition applied to this input speech will not necessarily result in misrecognition. A problem is that in a case where speech is recognized correctly and the device can be operated correctly, the user will be confused if the above-mentioned advice is given.